


In your most frail gesture are things which enclose me

by bowtiesarecool



Category: True Detective
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Character Death, Child Death, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, Hospitals, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Pre-Series, Sad, Tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 10:18:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3892696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowtiesarecool/pseuds/bowtiesarecool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their daughter was never coming back. Sophia was gone. Rust and Claire would never see their little girl again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta'd  
> What if Rust and Claire dealt with Sophia's death together instead of turning against each other? AU where they stayed married.  
> Title from e.e. cummings, Somewhere I have never travelled

Sophia had been gone for just a few hours and the children’s hospital seemed to have a protocol in place to deal with grieving parents as efficiently as possible. A doctor appeared out of nowhere with a pill that eased Claire down from her sobbing grief into the silent, medicated, sleep of the truly broken. By then, Rust was too numb to even think of flashing his badge to demand they allow him to stay longer with Sophia. He blindly followed the Nurse when she ushered him out of the room, insisting that he step outside, as if to save him from seeing them take his daughter away. 

She pushed him down the hall into the pale, fluorescent visitor’s lounge, empty at this hour of the night, and asked if there was anyone he’d like to call. She gestured at a phone on the table, and began making him a cup of coffee he never asked for but had no will left to refuse. 

“No. No family round here. We moved to Texas when Claire was pregnant. Claire’s parents live back East. She doesn’t talk to them often. Her mother never got over how Claire actually married me. I just have my Pop, he lives in Alaska and he doesn’t have a phone. We wrote him a letter when we got married and sent him the birth announcement when Sophia was born, but he don’t write back much, my Pop. Just isn’t his style. We were talking about going up there one summer, me and Claire and Sophia as a family so he could see his grandbaby for the first time. Sophia loves looking at the stars, and the night sky up there, there’s just nothing like it, but we were waiting until she’d be old enough...”

He stopped and cleared his throat because it suddenly became hard to breathe. “She… used to love the stars.” he finally managed to choke out, because if he said anymore he was afraid he would fall apart. He couldn’t look up, but she tapped his arm gently to let him know she was still listening, and handed him a cup of bitter coffee.

He had stayed in Sophia’s hospital room as days blurred into nights. They were not sleeping, not eating, except for coffee and those pitiful tiny packages of graham crackers the Nurses kept bringing them. Graham crackers were Sophia’s favorite snack. She used to dip them in her milk until they got too soft to hold, and Rust would laugh as Claire tried to stop a giggly Sophia from smearing them all over her high chair. 

He and Claire sat vigil at their daughter’s bedside, taking turns dozing for an hour at a time, on a rough cotton hospital blanket and chair. Reading to his baby girl, hoping she would wake up from her coma and everything would go back to the way it was before. Claire’s voice breaking as she sang Sophia’s favorite songs. Then the Doctors came in with a grim, “There’s nothing we can do anymore”. He’d held Claire as she sobbed, while he wiped away the bitter tears that stung at his eyes. There was never any time to stop, they just kept moving forward until they couldn’t anymore. 

Rust paused, standing still for a moment. It may have been the first time he did so in days. Everything began to hit him at once. The numb feeling that protected him so far began to wear off, and the emotions he felt were the kind that he would be trying to avoid for the rest of his life. He wanted to thank the Nurse for being there for him and Claire, for showing him kindness when it was his fault for not watching Sophia, when his little girl had to go through so much pain because of him.

He never managed to say that out loud, though, because all of a sudden his throat felt raw and his eyes burned. He didn’t want to do this now, not when he still had to make sure Claire was all right, to call the funeral home, to somehow contact his Pop and Claire’s parents. Someone needed to go back to the house and pick out a dress for her to wear at the funeral. It should be the pink dress. The one that made her feel like a princess. Sophia loved when he read to her about the princess and the dragons in the little book with the bright pictures that he and Claire found at a thrift store before Sophia was born. “Daddy, more story, more”, she’d beg, trying to avoid naptime. He would always change the ending just for her, spinning tales about a princess who didn’t wait to be saved, who would always find a way to rescue herself. But now there was no one to save his little princess. Her story came to an end before it even began. 

The coffee cup slipped from his grasp as he stumbled into a chair. The Nurse moved to take it from him; worried he’d fall. She said his name, quietly first, then louder when he didn’t respond. She held his hand and took his pulse, rubbing his back and reminding him to breathe in and out. He tried to turn away, to have some shred of dignity, but instead he grasped her hand tightly. He tried to stop shaking, take a deep breath, and quiet the panic that was filling his lungs. He didn’t want to break down in front of her, but she was one of the last people who saw his daughter alive, someone else apart from himself and Claire who understood how they just lost something valuable they could never get back. He was vaguely aware of her presence at his side as he finally started to cry. “She’s gone” he gasped out between sobs. There was so much more to say but he couldn’t breathe. “My baby’s really gone”. 

His daughter was never coming back. Sophia was gone. Rust would never see his little girl again.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Sophia's funeral, Rust and Claire grieve in different ways.

Rust went back to work five days after the funeral.

Claire stayed home alone. 

Sophia wasn’t there. Claire had no one to care for anymore. Maybe she could volunteer somewhere. Maybe go back to school. Maybe get a dog. 

Nobody else would ever need her like her daughter needed her. A mother’s love is supposed to be the most powerful thing in the world; it should always make her child feel better. But all Claire could remember is how pale Sophia’s face was the last time she held her. 

She didn’t want to remember.

Claire still had most of the pills left. She drank wine. She slept. She watched TV. One morning, she tried going through Sophia’s room. The next door neighbor rang the doorbell a few times, intending to drop off a casserole. She managed to get herself in through the back door, alarmed when she heard the gut-wrenching sobs coming from upstairs. The neighbor kindly offered to pack up all the toys and clothes and store the boxes at her house until Claire was ready to do decide what to do. She sat Claire down with a cup of tea while she packed everything up and took it over next door. 

Claire remembered how Sophia was so friendly; she loved to play with the other kids. The neighbors had a little boy of five, and a little girl Sophia’s age. The three of them used to run around everywhere, as the adults chatted and kept an eye on them. Now each time Claire heard those kids playing outside, she wanted to die. She kept the shades over her bedroom window pulled tightly shut, as if to place a barrier between her and the outside world. She was mad that the sun kept on coming up in the mornings. She hated it when she would hear the kids get on the bus to school, because Sophia was never going to ever get to do that. 

A world without Sophia was not one she wanted to participate in ever again.

Claire was crying into the phone one day when Rust came back from work early. She was on the phone with the hospital records department, begging them to give her Sophia’s medical charts. “I just need to make sure she wasn’t in pain” Claire sobbed over and over, terrifying the poor clerk on the other end. 

Rust gently took the phone from her and told the clerk they would call back later. He tried to give Claire a reassuring hug, but he ended up accidentally jabbing her with his elbow because the phone cord was in the way. 

“Why does that matter so much, Claire? Even if she was in pain she wouldn’t have been aware of it.”

Claire called him a heartless bastard and did not speak to him for three days.

Rust started coming home later and later each night. Not always directly from work. 

At work, he followed one simple rule. Don’t talk about personal shit. Ever. It kept him out of trouble. Mostly.

The other guys stayed away from him. They were waiting for him to break. Looking for any sign of weakness, but he didn’t give them anything interesting to talk about. He made sure not to let anyone get too close. He considered applying to transfer somewhere else, Narcotics, maybe. Somewhere where no one knew him, where he could start over as somebody else.

He was vaguely amused by the ambitious ones who were waiting to pounce, looking for a reason get him disqualified for duty, hungry for his job. He was less amused, however, by the ones with Bible verses and no respect for personal space. The ones who would corner him to tell him they could never imagine losing a child, and how devastated they were when they heard the news. “If you need anything, let me know.” Rust would nod his thanks through gritted teeth. When they’d finally let him go, there would be fingernail marks on his palms he didn’t remember making.

He could almost deal with almost everything in almost the same way as he did before. 

At work, he made sure there were always things he had to do, that there was always somewhere he had to be. Except sometimes, he’d look up from a stack of files; usually late at night when the place was empty, after everyone went home. He’d realize that he’d forgotten to remember Sophia’s laugh, or the feel of her curls, or how she felt in his arms as he held her. Then it would hit him violently, painfully, that she was really gone. At least he could be thankful that no one else was ever around at that hour. 

He stopped putting milk and sugar in his coffee. On weekend mornings, Sophia used to climb on his lap and beg him to let her taste his coffee. What she really wanted was to drink from a big cup like her Daddy had. He’d always relent and make a cup of coffee for her that was around five parts sweet milk, and one part weak coffee. Claire would laugh as her daughter tried to manage the giant mug in her tiny hands, but she’d tell Rust not to give her anymore, because she heard coffee could stop Sophia from growing. No need to worry about that anymore, Rust thought bitterly. Now the taste of milk in coffee made him physically ill.

One afternoon he passed a box filled with little teddy bears that they were giving out to take home for the kids. It was child abuse awareness week or something like that. He had picked one up for her and had already gone back to his desk when he remembered. He still had the bear in his hand when he grabbed his jacket and keys and mumbled something about meeting a CI. He didn’t look up until he was well out the door. He caught his breath and wiped his eyes and in the privacy of his truck. He spent the rest of the day driving around; trying to find a place where he could get away from the noise in his head. He ended up settling for a dive bar behind a battered neon sign. It didn’t exactly help, but he appreciated how the alcohol burned his throat.

That damn bear could still be there at the side of the road, for all he cared.

He did end up eventually meeting with a CI, but not anyone from a current case. Rust had never really trusted this particular CI to give accurate information. This suited his present purposes just fine though, because who would ever believe a coked up junkie’s word over a cop’s. Rust made an effort to hide the drugs at first, but after a while he stopped caring. As if Claire was one to talk with all her pills and bottles of wine. 

They didn’t seem to be able to talk to each other anymore. A lifetime ago, they would make each other laugh. Now, there were usually two possible directions an evening could go. A never ending screaming match; or alternatively, Rust lifting his hands up in defeat after his first mistake of the evening, going up to the spare bedroom, and drinking enough cheap whiskey until he couldn’t think anymore. It became clear that it was in everyone’s best interest that he always chooses the second option.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rust and Claire finally realize they still have each other.

One evening he came upstairs and Claire was in her pajamas, looking like she hadn’t gotten out of bed all day. A half-empty bottle of wine was on the dresser. But her hair was soft and loose and reminded Rust of how she’d wear it when they first met.

“You have to keep on living Claire. You can’t stay like this. We’ll see her again someday.”

“Shut up. If that day isn’t today, then I don’t care!”

“I know it’s hard, I miss her too, but you need to move on….”

“How can you say that and be so calm? I don’t want to move on if it means I have to live the rest of my life missing her every day. I don’t understand you, Rust, it’s like you already forgot about her.” 

“It’s like you never loved Sophia.” She spat out.

Claire gasped and covered her mouth with both hands.

“I’m sorry. Rust, I’m so sorry. No, I didn’t mean that. Please. I am so sorry.”

It felt as if Rust’s brain and heart and lungs had opted out of ever working again. He stopped, frozen in place, and no one said anything for a long time.

“Claire, I don’t miss her any less than you do. I just can’t bring myself to talk or think about her. Not because I didn’t love her, but because it hurts too much.” 

Claire felt the raw emotion in his voice and was surprised to see tears in his eyes. She reached out to him, and he wrapped his arms around her.

“I love you Rust. I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. I know you loved her just as much as I do. I feel so alone, because I have no one who understands what it’s like to lose a baby. Except you, Rust, we both lost our baby. But I don’t know if we miss her the same way. It’s like we turned against each other when we need each other the most. This is the first time I’ve ever seen you cry since Sophia died.”

“I do cry, but I don’t want you to see. Sometimes, when I get so busy working late I forget that she’s gone. And then when I remember again, it feels like my heart is being ripped out of my chest. I miss Sophia every day.

I completely fell apart the night she died. Right after the doctors took her off the machines and the funeral home came to take her away. You weren’t there because the doctor gave you something to calm down. One of Sophia’s nurses got me out of the room so I could call someone, but I was telling her how we have no family around here. Then I broke down right there in front of her, without meaning to, but I couldn’t stop myself. She stayed with me until I could convince her I was fine. She even called the funeral home for me because I couldn’t do it. I wish I could remember her name.”

“Who was it?” Claire asked. “Was she the one who was there when Sophia moved and I thought she was waking up, but it was just a reflex?” 

“Yes.”

“So she’s seen us both cry then.” Claire was running her hands in Rust’s hair, like she used to do before. It felt good to feel her hands on him again.

“That was Maggie. I remember her. She was so kind, she treated Sophia if she was a normal little girl and not dying. She talked to me like I was a real person, not just some poor weeping mother, even though I was a mess. She told me that if wanted, I could exercise her arms and legs; it would stop her muscles from getting stiff. She showed me how to bend and stretch Sophia’s arms without hurting her or disturbing anything. It made me feel a little better, that there was something I could do, to touch, and care for her, especially when I felt so helpless. 

Seeing Sophia so still was scary. She used to always be full of energy, running around. In the hospital, she was completely passive and empty. Not wiggling or restless. Now she looked nothing like my baby was supposed to look like. The ventilator, the bandages, and the tubes around her head and with her eyes always closed. And Sophia always hated naps. I used to wish she’d lie still for fifteen minutes so I could get dinner ready, but now I am so sorry I ever wished that. All I wanted was for her to start crying and screaming. I would give anything to go back to the worst tantrum she ever had just so I could see her alive and moving again.” 

Rust moved back on the bed closer to Claire because she started sobbing again. She held onto him, and he wrapped his arms around her and held her. He felt the painful memories coming back to him too. He remembered Claire gently lifting Sophia’s wrist and elbow while singing nursery rhymes. He sat there too, reading the same books over and over, just in case Sophia would respond to her parents’ voices.

“When I close my eyes, all I can see is her smiling face that morning, and then I see the car coming. I see it happening over and over. And I can never save her.”

“So do I” Rust whispered. 

“And sometimes, I forget what she looked like before, but I can see perfectly clear in my head how she looked like in the hospital. I don’t know which is worse.”

Tears were streaming down Rust’s face too. He made no effort to hide them. Listening to Claire reminded him of what he had never really forgotten, just pushed to the back of his mind. The week of hell at Sophia’s bedside was all coming back to him. 

Claire placed her hands between them, near his heart, and he held them tightly as he asked,

“Do you remember when we used to talk about going to Alaska with Sophia one day?” 

Claire managed a sad smile.

“Yeah, you said Sophia should meet your Pop, and I said I was too worried she would be eaten by a bear. I thought we should wait until she got older.” 

Rust smiled too. 

“No, I think Sophia would have been fine. Anyway, I am sure she would have outsmarted the bear. My Pop probably got our letter by now, and he is going to be devastated that he never got to meet her. There were so many things I still wanted to do with her. I held her the night she was born and I knew my life had changed forever. I was so happy that we managed to create something so beautiful and perfect. But now I am scared. Nothing makes sense anymore. I almost wish she was never born, so she never could have suffered.”

Claire was listening intently. They lay on their sides facing each other. Her pupils were wide and glassy from crying, but her eyes seemed clearer than he had seen in a long time. Rust could see that she still had those tiny freckles around her eyes, even under all the redness and tears.

“You shouldn’t feel guilty for bringing Sophia into the world. She had a beautiful life. I am glad we got to have her in our lives, even for such a short time. I will always be her mother. You should be proud to be her father. She loved you so much. 

She was such a Daddy’s girl. I was so proud of you Rust, after she was born, and you were working so hard in your career, but nothing was more important than making your daughter laugh. You sat there for hours reading her stories. She loved you. She was happy. She died so young, but she died after living her entire life filled with love. That love will always be there. You have to look for that love, Rust. Sophia’s love will never go away.”

Fresh tears were streaming down Claire’s face. Rust was crying too as he held her close.

“I miss her so much. I can’t take it. The littlest thing reminds me of her, and I feel like I can’t breathe. It happens all the time. Even at work. Sometimes I feel like every woman and girl I see is my daughter. I can’t stop them from being hurt, and I can’t keep them safe, just like I couldn’t save Sophia.” 

Rust started crying harder, with the same sense of panic as he felt the night she died, when everything hit him at once, and he had never felt so helpless and scared in his life.

Claire held him tightly and waited for him to calm down. She had never seen him in so much pain. She whispered his name and told him she loved him. It took a long time for him to stop.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” he finally said.

Claire kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry too, Rust. I never should have said you didn’t love me or Sophia.”

“I didn’t want to burden you. I wanted to make you feel better, to take your pain away, not add my pain to yours by making you worry about me. I wanted to be strong for you.” 

“No, Rust you’re wrong. I worry about you just like you worry about me. I loved Sophia and I also love you. You are the only other person in the world who understands what I lost, because you lost her too. I care about you just as much as you care about me.”

Claire held him close. He was trembling after crying so hard. She had started shivering in her thin cotton shirt, so she held onto Rust to stay warm and they lay together quietly. 

Rust felt things so strongly, but would never admit it. He would rather hurt himself than worry her. She knew he was special when she first fell in love with him, because no man had ever cared so deeply about her before.

Claire could feel his heart beating steadily against her. “Rust, are you awake?” she whispered. He moved over and pulled the blanket over her so she wouldn’t be cold.

“Claire, honey what do you need?”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you in the hospital right after Sophia died. Promise me you will allow yourself to grieve around me. I don’t want you to feel alone, or try to protect me from seeing you struggle. I’m sorry I never thanked you for planning the funeral. It must have been even worse for you, having to make all the calls. I don’t remember much of it. Just vague colors and sounds and all those strangers telling us she’s with God now. But I remember the pink dress you chose for her. I felt a little better knowing that she was so beautiful. Like a princess in a fairy tale.” 

Claire couldn’t really make out what Rust said in response, because she was half asleep nestled into his shoulder, but she felt the vibrations of his voice in his chest. They fell asleep in each other’s arms, feeling less alone than they had in a long time.


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time is a flat circle.

The next morning, Rust and Claire agreed to go see a grief counselor who diagnosed them both with Complicated Grief. She encouraged them to join a support group for bereaved parents. They’d meet each month at a room in North Shore Psychiatric Hospital in Lubbock, Texas

Rust never did go back to that CI. He also substantially cut down on his drinking, but not on the cigarettes, unfortunately.

Claire never refilled her prescription for those pills, but did start taking an antidepressant, which helped her a lot. 

One weekend, they drove down to the animal shelter and came back with a lively retriever mix puppy. When they got him home, he bounded inside the house and immediately started slipping and sliding all over their wooden floors. Rust and Claire hadn’t laughed like that in a long time, but they eventually put down a couple of mats. 

They started sleeping in the same room again, and just over a year later they had a little boy. Rust’s Pop arrived unannounced from Alaska and demanded to see his grandbaby. He’d arrived exactly on the day of Claire’s expected due date, which they had mentioned in the letter, but the baby was a week late so for everyone’s sanity Rust sent his Pop to a Motel.

Claire finished up the final credits she needed for her college degree, and kept up with her classes even with a newborn. She began studying to become a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, specializing in grief after the loss of a child.

Rust transferred to Homicide from Robbery. Claire was amazed to see him base such an important decision on a Bible quote, _“… Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.”_ (1 Corinthians 12:14-21). But after all they’d been through, Claire completely understood why he felt he could stay better connected to people by working in Homicide. 

After Claire gave birth to another little girl, her mother eventually came around to liking Rust. He just didn’t seem anymore like the type to leave her daughter. She didn’t mind being proven wrong just this once. Soon Rust and Claire and their growing family decided to move down to Louisiana to be with her; she was all alone in a big house ever since Claire’s father died. Although it was hard sometimes, Claire certainly didn’t mind the help in watching the kids while she was at school, and later on when she started seeing patients.

Every year on January 3rd, they would all go to the park together as a family. Sophia’s little brother and sister would run around and play. Then they’d all send balloons into the sky with birthday messages for their big sister Sophia in heaven.

Rust and Claire came over for dinner to meet his new partner Marty Hart, and his wife, Maggie. Maggie now worked as a nurse at Lafayette Hospital, but she once worked at a children’s intensive care unit in Texas, just before she married Marty. 

That evening wasn’t the first time she’d seen Rust and Claire cry.


End file.
